Wednesday, May 13, 2015

SAP/HANA Does Big Data for National Security

Carmen Krueger, SAP NS2 SVP & GM

While SAP is globally renowned as a provider of enterprise
management software, the name is hardly ever associated with the spooky world
of intelligence. That is one reason why I jumped at the opportunity to talk
with SAP executives responsible for the company’s work in that clandestine
marketplace.

SAP National Security Services, Inc.™ (SAP NS2™) is an
independent U.S. subsidiary of the company and offers a full suite of SAP enterprise
applications, analytics, database, cyber security, cloud, and mobility software
solutions. These offerings, however, are endowed with specialized levels of
security and support needed to meet the unique mission requirements of US
National Security Agencies and critical national infrastructure customers. SAP
NS2 also provides secure consulting and support services from experts that hold
current credentials in the national security space. Carmen Krueger, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Cloud Operations, focuses on the critical
security requirements of national security clients that adopt and deploy SAP
technologies.Joining her in our
discussion was Hunter Downey, NS2 Cloud Solutions Director.

Hunter Downey, NS2 Cloud Solution Director

Kevin: Carmen,
Hunter, thank you both for spending the time to talk with me.Just to set a level playing field for my
readers, what is SAP?

Carmen: SAP is a global
enterprise software company that offers a full suite of world-class enterprise
applications, analytics, database, cyber security, cloud, and mobility software
solutions. Corporately our goal is to make a material impact on making the
world better.

Kevin: Why is
cloud computing so important to public sector organizations?

Carmen: Cloud computing
is critical because it combines convenience with speed and delivers the
innovation needed for addressing the public sector’s current inability to
leverage leading edge technologies. It enables resource pooling that drives
efficiencies, cost savings and improved resource allocations. The various cloud
computing service and deployment models also provide flexibility to
organizations while allowing them to remain within their specific mission
limits and requirements.

Hunter: With
cloud computing organizations are able to extract physical resources and give
them to agencies as needed.These
resources can grow and contract over time, adapting to the users. IT infrastructure
is now morphing into a platform that give agencies an ability to focus dollars
towards more strategic needs.

Kevin: How are
public sector policies when it comes to cloud computing?

Carmen: The
cloud computing adoption process has matured significantly. DoD’s new policy
has set in motion a re-interpretation of current policies that actually favor
cloud. There are, however, still some open questions on the policy, change
management and organizational risk management processes. The new policy has put
a “set of guardrails” around the cloud computing decision making process. Although
procedural backlogs remain, things are moving forward and enablers are now in
place.

Kevin: How
should agencies approach the adoption of cloud computing?

Carmen: In
adopting cloud, decision makers must clearly understand the goals of the
organization and see cloud computing as an enabler and strategic underpinning
of specific business outcomes. Cloud computing enables collaboration between
functional owners, information technology leads and the information assurance
organization. All too often functional owners run ahead of other organizational
stakeholders.This leads to
organizational misalignment and adoption missteps. It is also vitally important
to get the organizations “cloud jargon” in line. The mixing of marketing terms
and technical descriptions often leads to serious misunderstandings during the cloud
computing adoption process.

Kevin: SAP provides
ERP software which is typically considered a difficult application to move to
the cloud. Why is this? Has this changed?

Carmen: ERP
applications are not more or less difficult to move to the cloud than other
applications. ERP is, however, mission critical so organizations normally assign
higher levels of risk to such a transition. These risks are not typically
associated with technical barriers but are mostly organizational change
management issues.

Hunter: The
value in transitioning ERP to the cloud is often much more substantial because
it gives the organization news ways of accessing and using information. It is
also often easier to try out new capabilities.

Kevin: SAP’s
cloud portfolio has really expanded over the past couple of years. Are you
leading your customers to the cloud or following them there?

Hunter: We are
side-by-side with our customers as they move to the cloud. We are not being presumptive
in any way but work closely with hem in defining technical requirements and
strategies.

Kevin: What are
the nuances in the selection of an appropriate cloud deployment model?

Carmen: A
community cloud, like IC ITE (Intelligence Community Information Technology Environment) is always a viable option for national security organizations.
Private cloud environment are also a popular choice. Over the next two years
SAP’s ability to offer NIST, FedRAMP and Trusted Internet Connection (TIC) compliant environments will expand.
Today we currently have a secure HANA cloud offering in place as a PaaS
(Platform-as-a-Service). It complies with all export and FedRAMP requirements.
A Human Resource Management (HRM) SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) offering that
meets all DoD requirements is also being built.

Kevin: What is
HANA and how does it relate to cloud computing?

Hunter: HANA is
an in-memory, column-oriented, relational database management system. Its
architecture is designed to handle both high transaction rates and complex
query processing on the same platform. This approach has completely transformed
the database industry by combining database, data processing, and application
platform capabilities in a single in-memory platform. The platform also
provides libraries for predictive, planning, text processing, spatial, and
business analytics.

HANA has been adopted to support many national security use
cases. It is being used as a platform for data analytics, situational awareness,
digital documents and geospatial analysis. Since the database is stored in RAM
(Random Access Memory) it provides the easiest known method for accessing and
using information. When you combine HANA and the cloud in a national security
focused PaaS, there is no need for agencies to procure and incorporate any new
hardware.

Kevin: What's
next for agencies after they've adopted a cloud infrastructure?

Carmen: Decision makers
should make the adoption of cloud computing risk free. They should also look
across all their different programs in order to identify where cloud can
deliver strategic value to the enterprise. Also highlight your successes in
cloud. Cloud computing shortens the timeline between understanding an
information gap and addressing these gaps. It does this by eliminating programmatic
silos that prevent the free flow of information. Embrace this new approach and
don’t be so prescriptive when addressing information shortfalls. Learn how to
listen to the data and how to learn from it.

( This content is being syndicated through multiple channels. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of GovCloud Network, GovCloud Network Partners or any other corporation or organization.)